


Calluna

by ruinhistorynerd



Category: A Hat in Time (Video Game)
Genre: "Don't forget to tag moonjumper" i say as i forget to tag him, Coraline AU, Gen, and updates when i actually sit down and write, how does one tag?, i think that's everyone - Freeform, there will be a real summary... eventually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-12 08:42:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15991688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruinhistorynerd/pseuds/ruinhistorynerd
Summary: Coraline AU.Discontinued and possibly to be deleted. I'm sorry to those of you who enjoyed this fic.





	1. Chapter 1

“I’m going out!” Hat Kid called. She awaited an answer, but the house remained silent. “Fine, be like that.” She muttered as she tugged on her boots.

If her parents knew she was going to go look for an old abandoned well, they’d throw an absolute fit. Mostly her mom, who rarely approved of any of her adventures. Her dad was more lenient, but hardly had time for her between all his work.

They only had time for her when she did something wrong, like track in a little mud.

In a brand new place with no friends, that meant she was left to herself. At least a remote place like this would provide lots of adventures and places to explore. She'd heard a rumor about an old well, and figured finding that would make for a good start to her day.

She took the porch stairs two at a time, and grabbed a branch off a nearby bush. She usually carried around an umbrella, but it was packed away somewhere and she didn't feel like digging around through endless piles of boxes for it.

Hat Kid plucked the leaves off of the branch one by one as she headed down an overgrown dirt path, scanning for any sign of the well.

While in a forested part of the path, something hit her in the head, knocking off her prized top hat. “Who’s there?!” She demanded, whirling around to find the culprit, her fists clenched.

No one was there, so she put back on her hat, and just for good measure, picked up a pine cone and threw it behind her. It crashed into the bushes and scared a lizard, but that was it, so she continued walking.

Hat Kid got to the top of a hill and frowned at the sky as it started to sprinkle rain on her. “Of course, you had to pull this on the day I don't have my umbrella, didn't you?!” She yelled at it. She was glad she'd at least had the forethought to bring her bright yellow raincoat.

As she poked at the ground with her stick, she felt a light tug on the corner of her coat. She swore she leapt an entire foot in the air when she turned around and found herself staring at a cat that had definitely not been there before.

“Gah!” She swatted at it with the branch. “Are you trying to scare me to death?!”

It easily dodged her swipes and hopped up onto a rock. Something about the cat’s face made it look smug, which infuriated Hat Kid.

She shook the stick at it threateningly. “Quit looking at me like that! If you have to go around scaring me, at least help me find the well!”

Hat Kid had stared down all sorts of people, many times before, but never anyone like this cat. She was almost grateful for the distraction of someone grabbing her stick, because otherwise the cat probably would have won.

Nevertheless, she was still furious. “Who do you think you are?!” She growled at the new girl. “I might be new around here, but that's no reason to go stealing things right out of my hands!”

“You're some city girl, aren't ya?” The mustached newcomer asked. She tapped the stick on the ground. “Where're you from?”

“The Breathing Sea.” Hat Kid deadpanned, saying the first words that came to mind.

“Oh, really?” The girl said sarcastically. “Then shouldn't a water witch like you know better than to stand in a fairy circle?” She pointed to the ring of mushrooms on the ground.

Hat Kid glanced down in surprise and jumped out of the circle, glaring at the cat. “Why didn't you tell me?” She scolded it. For a second, it looked like the cat smirked at her. “Is this your cat? I wouldn't be surprised. It’s pretty badly behaved.”

The new girl looked insulted. “No! He’s a stray. I mean, I do feed him most evenings, but he’s not mine.”

“So you're saying that your cat isn't your cat, you just _treat_ him like your cat?”

“He’s not even allowed in the house- things go missing every time we let him in. Just little things like marbles and small coins. But he's not mine!” She argued.

“I really don't care if he's your cat. If he was it wouldn't surprise me that he's a thief, since his owner is a stalker.” Hat Kid quipped. “And wears a fake mustache.”

“For the last time, _he’s not my cat_! And this mustache is 100% real!”

“I like how you didn't deny the stalker part. Who are you, anyway?”

“I'm Mu! Well, my full name is Muirenn, but don't call me that.” The now-named Mu huffed. “What about you, huh? I bet you have a really boring name. People with boring names are supposed to have boring lives, you know.”

Hat Kid bristled. She did, in fact, have a normal, boring name. But that was not going to make her have a boring life! “I’m Heather, but everyone calls me Hat Kid.” Most people insisted that Hat Kid wasn't a name and called her Heather, actually, but she wasn't about to let a stalker know that.

“Can I call you Hattie?”

“Absolutely not!” That was one of her father’s nicknames for her. It was less boring than Heather, but it made her sound like a little kid, and she really hated being treated like she was five. “I came out here to find an old well, not have a chat with a stalker!”

Mu sighed. “If I tell you where the well is, will you drop the whole ‘stalker’ thing? I _swear_ I wasn't stalking you. We kids should stick together, you know? If I hadn't done anything when I did, you could have fallen down there and broke your neck.”

“So the well is right here?” Hat Kid pointed at the middle of the mushroom circle. “I don't know if you have eyes, but that's very clearly just some dirt and mud.”

“That's because they sealed it up a long time ago,” Mu explained as she used the stick to scrape away the mud, revealing an old, weathered wooden trapdoor underneath. “People kept falling in and getting hurt, so they just closed it off.”

“Mhmm.” Hat Kid nodded, not really listening to what Mu was saying, as she crouched down to examine the well.

“Hey, you're around my age, right? I’m surprised my Grandma let your family move in. She own that old manor, and always insists that she’ll never rent it to anyone with kids. She doesn't even let me go in there. I’ve always wanted to know what it's like in there. You’ll tell me all about it right? As my new best friend?” Mu rambled on.

“Uh-huh. Sure.”

“And I can visit you whenever I want, and we’ll hang out?”

“Mhm.” Hat Kid was preoccupied looking for a rock to test the well’s depth, and was completely unaware of what the other girl was saying.

“Thanks, bestie!” Mu cheered, tackling her with a hug. “I have to go home, now, but I’ll see you later!”

“Great.” Hat Kid muttered as Mu grabbed her bike. “Don’t forget your freakishly long cat.” She picked up the annoyed cat in question and held him out.

“He’s _not_ my cat.” Mu argued, but she took him anyway. “I’ll see you around, Hat Kid!”

She breathed a sigh of relief as she was left alone again. She dropped the stone down the well and waited for the splash at the bottom, patiently counting the seconds. She nodded to herself when she heard it, and got up off the ground, brushing off the mud.

After kicking the cover back in place, she turned to leave. That was enough excitement for one morning.


	2. Chapter 2

“Mom, I nearly fell down an old well yesterday.” Hat Kid stated as she entered the kitchen the next morning.

“I hope that afterwards, you made sure to take off your muddy boots before you came inside, and had _absolutely nothing to do with the mud that was all over the entrance hall when we got back._ ” Her mom replied with a glare.

Hat Kid glared right on back. She had, in all actuality, taken off her rain boots before going inside, but after finding a note that told her to work on unpacking while her parents were gone, she'd put them back on and stomped all over the entrance hall out of sheer pettiness and spite. “Well maybe if you guys had told me _beforehand_ that you were leaving, there wouldn't be any mud!”

The two just kept on glaring at each other until Hat Kid backed down, internally hoping that whatever her mom had been typing was now full of typos.

“Where did you guys even go, yesterday? Down into town? If you did, I would have loved to come with you.”

“No, you wouldn't have.” She tersely replied.

“Why not?” She argued back, walking over to the counter and staring out the window. “Did you guys have a repeat of ‘ **The Basement Incident** ’?”

For the first time during their conversation, the sound of keyboard keys stopped. “Who told you about that?”

Her mom was using the too-sweet tone of voice that always meant someone was treading on very thin ice. And right now, Hat Kid had the sneaking suspicion it was her.

“Um... One of dad's old friends. I think her name’s Florence...? She didn't tell me anything about it, though, just mentioned it at one point.” She hurried to explain.

“Oh. **Her**.” The tapping of the keyboard resumed, and Hat Kid let out a silent sigh of relief. She'd dodged a bullet on that one. “I bet she didn't tell you she was the whole reason it happened, did she?”

“N-”

“It was a rhetorical question, Heather. Go unpack or something and leave me alone. Unlike you, I have work to get done.”

Hat Kid knew when it was a bad time to argue, and this was certainly one of those times, so she silently left. But unpacking seemed far too boring, and far too daunting of a challenge, so instead she decided to go bother her dad.

“Daaad, can I go outside?”

The room was silent except for the sounds of keyboard keys and the occasional flip of a book page.

“ _Dad_.”

“Oh, hey Hattie.” He waved, but didn't turn around, so she rolled her eyes at the nickname. “Did you need something?”

“Yeah. Can I go like, outside? On an adventure?”

“What did your mother say about it?”

Hat Kid sighed. It was the same question, every time. Would it kill him to make his own decisions more often? “I meant to ask her, but I never really got around to it.”

“And why not?”

She bit her lip. The chances of her escaping bringing up ‘ **The Basement Incident** ’ twice without getting in trouble was, well, not looking very good for her. Time to avoid it as well as she could. “I may have brought up one of the Incidents...”

He sighed, and she stared down at the floor. He sounded so disappointed. “In that case, I think it would be best if you stayed inside today.”

“Well then, what should I do?” Hat Kid didn't want to be an annoyance, but she was tired of being cooped up inside all the time. At least when she was outside on an adventure, she could pretend to be anything she wanted. She could be a time traveler, a detective, a parade leader, a mud monster, _anything_.

She could pretend her parents still loved each other.

“You could go explore the house. It's pretty old, I’m sure there's at least something interesting.” He suggested. “You could make a map of all the rooms, or write down what’s in them.”

It wouldn't be exactly the same, she thought as she stared out the window at the rain outside. But it would be better than nothing. “Alright. I’ll do that.”

“Oh, and one more thing.” He stopped her as she started to leave. “Someone left a package for you on the front porch last night. I think I left it on one of the shelves in your room.”

Who would be sending her a package? Maybe it was Briana or Timmy, her old friends back home. She was pretty sure she hadn't told them her new address yet, though. Whatever, a gift was a gift, and gifts were good! “Thanks, dad!” She bounced out of the room and up the stairs with a renewed energy.

She scanned the shelves for the package, and quickly spotted a crinkled roll of brown parchment paper that hadn't been there before. If it was that lazily wrapped, it probably wasn't from Timmy or Briana. It wouldn’t have survived the mail. Then who could it be from?

She unwrapped it, and removed a doll and a note. The doll looked exactly like her, minus the fact that it had buttons for eyes. It was pretty cute, actually, but who here would know what she looked like well enough to make a completely accurate doll of her?! She'd been here for two days!

She turned to the note, which was written in somewhat messy handwriting.

“ _Hey, Hat Kid! I was digging around in my house’s attic yesterday, and I found this! It looks exactly like you! Isn't that cool? This doll is probably at least a hundred years old, too! Since it looks just like you, I figured I’d let you have it!_  
 _-Your new BFF, Mu_ ”

Oh. It was from the crazy stalker girl with the mustache and the cat. That made far too much sense. And BFFs? Since when? They'd literally only talked once!

Hat Kid almost tossed away the doll out of annoyance at the other girl, but it really was cute... and she could use some comfort, even if she was too old for dolls. She dug through her bag and found a mostly-empty notepad and a pencil. She’d put it in there in case they made any interesting pit stops, which they hadn’t. At least it was useful now.

She scanned her room with a critical eye.

Nope, nothing interesting here. She drew a box on the paper, marked it “My Room”, and wrote “Nothing interesting” in small letters next to it.

Hat Kid searched through the hallway, an empty room filled with boxes, and a dusty closet. The first two were marked as boring, and she put a spider warning on the closet. She hadn’t seen any spiders, but she’d seen webs, those would have to be cleared out before she’d go back in there.

There was another bedroom, with a bathroom off to the side of it. She inspected the toilet and discovered some sort of slimy mold growing inside it. She immediately shut the lid in disgust and wrote “gross toilet” in her notepad.

She started to look around more when the toilet flushed itself. Hat Kid yelped and bolted from the room, locking the door behind her. She amended her previous note. The toilet was gross _and_ possessed.

That only left the downstairs, which she had already explored most of. She hadn't explored the living room and the kitchen, but she'd rather not go to the kitchen just yet. The living room it was!

It was just as dull and boring as the rest of the house. The walls were covered in a hideous yellow-brown wallpaper that reminded her of one time she'd tried to hold Timmy’s baby cousin and gotten spit up on.

There was an old couch that had been left by the old tenants, but the last time she'd sat on it she'd gotten poked by the springs.

It was a boring room. That was no way to end an adventure! She needed something exciting. Maybe there would be something in the kitchen?

She should probably leave her doll here, she didn't want her mom to think she was starting to become a girly-girl. That would be horrible- where _was_ her doll? She must have dropped it somewhere.

Ah, there it was, behind some boxes. How it got there was beyond her. Hat Kid struggled to move the heavy box far enough to get the doll.

There were lines that stood out of the wall. Bad wallpaper, maybe? There was a dent that looked like a keyhole. The lines formed a little door, she realized. This was interesting! Just what she'd hoped for!

“Hey, mom, there's a little door in the living room!” She called over to the other room. There was no response. Typical. “It's behind the wallpaper and I think it needs a key! Can you help me open it?”

Still no response. Hat Kid flopped dramatically on the floor. “ _ **Moooooom**_ -”

“If I open it will you shut up?!” She snarled as she stomped into the room, and box cutter and a key in one hand.

Hat Kid gave her best puppy dog eyes, and nodded. After a moment, the wallpaper had been cut open with precision that both impressed and mildly scared the girl.

It was a little door! The key clicked, the door swung open, and there was nothing but bricks behind it.

“What? This is so boring though!”

“They probably closed it up so that noisy little kids like you would stop bothering us adults about it. I’m going back to work, you had better keep it down!” She stomped back off to the kitchen.

“You didn't close it.” She pointed out, adding the boring door to her notepad.

“Heather, go to your room!”

Great. The first of many stupid punishments in this new house. She did go to her room, and she even tried to unpack a box or two.

She stayed up there until it started to feel like her old room again. Hat Kid picked up a picture of her friends, wincing as she heard a fight break out downstairs. “This old house is gonna see a lot of arguing today, isn't it, guys?” She muttered to the picture and her doll.

It was a good thing she always thought to keep some snacks in her room. Family dinners were never a thing after fights.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of new characters today! Vanessa, the Prince, mentions of Timmy and Bow Kid... I swear plot things will happen next chapter.
> 
> I hope ya'll enjoyed it! Hopefully the wait for the next chapter won't be super long... But I have a masters degree in procrastination!
> 
> (Fun Fact: Lolo uses waaaay too much italics and bold....)


End file.
